


End Game

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [45]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Aliens, Gen, Government Conspiracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was her worst nightmare: betrayed by Mulder, or someone who wore his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End Game

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 2.17 "End Game"  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

There was her worst nightmare: betrayed by Mulder, or someone who wore his face. The ersatz Mulder pinned her to the wall, threw her through a table, kept a warning hand on the back of her neck as she was marched out the car. It was like and unlike the way that Mulder touched her. She picked shards of glass out of her skin as the car skidded out of the parking lot, but at least she had warned the real Mulder. He would come for her.

She tried not to think about the fact that he had failed the last time, arriving, by his own testimony, moments too late as light sizzled the sweat off Duane Barry's face. The man, or whatever he was, said nothing to her, but she was alive. He seemed to believe she was more valuable that way. 

It was a comfort to see herself as a potential commodity, and how far her life had come that she could think that. She dozed, breathlessly, having picked the worst of the glass out of her hair and her clothing, and startled awake at every stoplight. 

Her captor shoved her into a phone booth and gave her lines to say. She had never been much of an actress, but she tried to drop hints to Mulder, through the static.

She watched his heart topple off a bridge, and later she watched it melt. Mulder's sister, the object of his quest, replaced with a copy or a decoy. She could barely bear the strangeness of it, so what must his grief have weighed?

Little wonder that he fled. She went to his apartment, not really expecting to find him. There were only the signs of a life lived in the shadows, and a makeshift beacon. She wondered who he called. The man who had died in her arms must have had a successor. Somewhere, even in the darkness, there was a chain of command, an order of succession. Structure. It was only that she got caught up in the chaos of it. The darkness had jaws that snapped shut on whatever prey they could catch. 

Deep Throat's replacement would tell her nothing. He pretended not to know her, though she was certain he knew her entire history, her weight, her blood type. It was Skinner who brought her what she needed, when the truth walked out the door.  
Alaska again: the cold that bit through to her bones, and Mulder. Mulder weak but alive. She would have chafed the life back into his limbs herself if she'd thought it would help. Instead she shocked him, feeling like Frankenstein tending her creature, and prescribed a course of treatment that would kill a lesser man, or a less-haunted one. 

Her science saved him. His faith saved him. Her faith saved him. It didn't matter, as long as they went on together, walking deeper into the labyrinth side by side.


End file.
